


25 years later

by barium



Series: We Are Legend [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 14:55:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5630623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barium/pseuds/barium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short recount of what life was like for Rose and Jade after the end of the world, set twenty-five years after In the End.</p>
            </blockquote>





	25 years later

A thirty-two year old Rose Lalonde stood on the southeast balcony of her large mansion, hand lazily stroking the back of her current cat, Mutie 2. The original Mutie had died many years before, sadly. Mutie 2 was found in the midst of an abandoned New York City on Rose’s third run there. It was scary to go, and she hasn’t really needed to, as her home was well-stocked and large enough for her not to get bored in. She hasn’t left her lot for a few years.

In the beginning Rose was panicked and confused, and was quite panicked and confused for a few years, though it wore off eventually. She wasn’t panicked anymore, not for a long, long while, and her sadness and confusion are most often just dull thoughts plaguing the back of her mind.

At the moment she let her eyes fall shut. She pretended the wind was blowing on her face, through the strands of her hair. In truth the wind didn’t exist, not anymore. Yet still plants grew everywhere, conveniently giving her ways to spend her day. She had become a much bigger gardener in recent years.

Her mind wandered to her friends — her closest friends, she should say. Night terrors used to afflict her, awful re-imaginings of the death of Jade, John, _Dave_ — and sometimes even simpler but just as effective dreams, ones that only reminded her of her aloneness.

“And loneliness,” she murmured to herself, thoughts already derailing to ones of the last text messages she received. They went there often, most times at night. She made sure to memorize them when she noticed her phone’s battery was minutes away from death, and there was no more power around.

They relayed:

TG: hey rose i have a serious af question

TG: would you rather the earth be hit by one giant meteor

TG: like another planet basically

TG: possibly jupiter

TG: or would you rather a bunch of small meteors just sprinkled over us

TG: got through the gotdamn atmosphere somehow and killed like everything

TG: which is more survivable

TG: this is for science

TG: wait i forgot jade is the sciencey one fuck

TG: well youre smart too

TG: wait forget i said that

TG: i hope your dreams are going ok tho for reals

TG: message me back later

Rose missed Dave, sometimes more than she could miss anything else. Rose fantasized about them growing up around each other, being thirty year olds in a way much different than she was being. Even so, she wouldn’t mind just having her brother and her friends around, even without all the excess normal. Or ex-normal. She supposed after 26 years, jobs and society and all that is what’s weird.

Sighing, she attempted to hug Mutie, but the cat was having none of it.

\----

Jade Harley slept a lot. She used to be the type of person who was an early riser, chipper and happy and ready for the day. Her dog Bec had a very similar personality to her, actually, and they spent a lot of time together after the world ended when he was all she had left. But ever since she was around twenty-six Bec started doing his own thing, and she only saw him occasionally. Now she slept well into the daylight, and it was only a little depressing doing so.

You see, Jade had good dreams. So good, in fact, that their realness made her sad sometimes.

She saw John and Dave, together, happy, growing. They traveled a lot, never settling down anywhere for more than three years. They stayed mostly to the west of the US, and when the dog they had with them passed away — and it did that, pass away, painless and quiet — they threw him a small funeral.

She saw them when they were sleeping, too, and when they raided stores for supplies, and when they tried to make themselves learn how to garden, only to give it up upon deciding they weren’t going to stay in that particular town for much longer anyway.

She saw them cry. Together, and individually. They rarely cried in front of each other, but when they did it was quiet, and mixed in with a lot of kissing. Save for when the gray dog died, around ten years after they found it. John must have cried for weeks afterward, nonstop, like a child left him. Dave wept softly, not as continuous as John but persistent, for the following nights. Getting used to not having the additional warmth must have been hard for them, Jade thought. She couldn’t imagine being younger and not having Bec there to keep her warm at night after he had for so many years.

She saw them imitate a marriage, with stolen suits and decorations and rings. This happened in their 20s, before the dog passed away. She wasn’t sure what drove the decision to marry in a world as broken as what theirs seemed to be (hers has been the same, just more lonely), plus she wouldn’t take either of them to be the type to _get_  married, despite her efforts to try and get them to, which she would have done if she knew they liked each other before. Maybe she didn’t know them that well after all. This was the saddest thing to realize.

She also saw Rose, when she slept. Rose sleeping, reading, eating. Rose was a much better gardener than John, after a little bit of practice, and Rose didn’t seem as sad about the whole thing, but surely she was. Surely she was missing her best friends. But Rose never cried — or, okay, she did, but very rarely. And she didn’t sleep nearly as much as Jade did, and she didn’t have herself a partner like John and Dave. Jade wondered how she didn’t go mad, all alone if a ginormous house with no one for company but a cat. Cats won’t even let you hug them. Jade wanted to hug Rose really bad.

Jade did a good job of convincing herself that her dreams were all real happenings. John really did stop shaving one year just to piss off Dave, who hardly grew facial hair at all, and Rose really did keep journals, and lots of them. She dreamed of building her own boat (which she tried, once, but she didn’t have very many books on construction and never had a knack for creation, anyway) and sailing to the states, reuniting her friends at last, because she knew there they were. That was Jade’s job, in the end, wasn’t it? To look after her friends.

She opened her eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://barium.tumblr.com/)


End file.
